


Adding Insult to Injury

by LJC



Category: Local Hero (1983)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:54:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LJC/pseuds/LJC
Summary: Not everything is always exactly as it seems, in Ferness. In fact, very little is.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	Adding Insult to Injury

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/gifts).



No-one ever talked about the hutch behind the hotel. It had just appeared one day, and no-one had taken much notice of it. There's was nothing particularly fancy about it. It had been cobbled together overnight from wire and wood, most likely by Andrew. And though it looked as if a stiff breeze might knock it over, it was actually quite sturdy. It was covered with a tarpaulin held in place with a few carefully placed rocks. There was a good, thick coating of straw on the bottom, and the lone resident was a grey rabbit with the unnerving habit of staring at you as if it (she? No-one in the village knew) were looking into the very depths of your soul.

Every once in a while, Stella would go out and change the straw, and dump food into a shallow metal dish. Usually kitchen scraps and grasses. Sometimes Catriona's little daughter would be brought by to pet the rabbit and feed it long blades of grass through the wire. She was a terror now that she was old enough to run about, instead of being confined to her push-chair.

She got nipped on one finger once, trying to feed the rabbit a particularly short handful of grass, and wailed like a banshee until Mrs Fraser gave her a stick of rock to suck on. That particular week, the chalkboard in the Macaskill Arms pub had odds on Rikki being the child's father. But Iain was a dark horse in the running, as far as Gordon was concerned. The fisherman who moonlighted as manager of The Ace Tones had always seemed more interested in his matchbox label collection than girls. But it was the quiet ones, Gordon thought, who would always surprise you.

When the RAF Jaguars stopped making their practice runs over the bay, a strange calm had settled over the town that lasted through the winter. Even when they broke ground on the institute, up on the cliffs above the bay, the grumbling about the American oil men and their riches was now old news. As if Ferness had changed the radio channel, much the same way Gideon was forever renaming the boat he'd kept in dry-dock for three years now. What might have been 'The Maid of Murmansk' one day was just as like to be 'Gregory's Girl' the next and there was no use trying to puzzle out how the old fisherman's mind worked. He changed like the wind--one of the only things in Ferness that did seem to change.

One blustery March morning, Stella had just dumped a load of green leafy carrot and turnip tops left over from the stew she was making into the rabbit's bowl when Viktor came up the lane, two bottles tucked under his arm. He kissed her on both cheeks, and presented her with a bottle of plum wine, the label completely in Japanese which she might ask Marina's Danny to translate for her, next time they were in the bar.

"I've never seen rabbit on the menu," Victor remarked, crouching down to watch the fat, happy creature nibbling at the leafy green top of a parsnip. 

"Oh, we've just the one. I've been keeping it as a pet, really."

"What's it's name?"

"Mac," Stella said with a sly smile, and opened the kitchen door wide so Viktor could follow her inside.

Outside, Harry-Trudi-Mac continued eating, oblivious to the laughter from within.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always had a sneaking suspicion Gordon and Stella were just winding the boys up, and thought it would be hilarious if Stella had kept the rabbit because of its lovely long eyelashes...


End file.
